The Velveteen Dog
by Sara Darkotter
Summary: And so went the velveteen dog, wishing to be real like his girl, hippity-hop down the poison stone hallway. / Exposition and madness.


Written for: Quidditch League Competition, round three.

Prompts: "When a war ends, what does that look like exactly?" - Sleeping, Andrea Gibson

Blue

Written to: Give Me Love - Ed Sheeran (Tumblr overlay mix)

I must say, I've got a bit of taste for Sirius/Lily now, and writing madness.

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And what Sirius wanted to know, what he wanted more than breath was to see what it looked like when a war ended and the danger was gone and it was safe to smile again. Did the sky turn clear and blue and light up bright as Lily's smile, did the wind billow with mountain air, did the sun shine stronger and wipe the cobwebs off laughter and soothe the scars of the haunted? What did a war look like to end and let peace uneasily through the door?

Lily had promise they'd see it, one hand on his shoulder and other soothing the back of a sleeping infant wrapped in dreams and surrounded by death, James fetching a missing rabbit toy with an ear already chewed off and stolen by the cat, Harry's first friend in powder blue fur already ready to hippity-hop away into the garden.

She had promised and she had smiled and his heart had dropped into his hands and broken itself before her to make her believe he was as hopeful. Lily Evans had a heart and a smile and a hope he would have died for, and perhaps now he was. This cold cell and the iron bars were poisoning him, slowly, Dementors icing the wounds that the stone dripped dripped dripped into so he couldn't suck it out, poison turning him into rock that would haunt this prison forever.  
Lily Evans simply could not just be loved, and Sirius had loved her like James had, so hard his heart cracked as it pumped and blood leaked out the lines, so deep the bottom of it could not be found without drowning, and he'd burned to ash a thousand times in her name, and yet love was how it was, and she and James had fallen into each other like rainfall, oceans meeting, and Sirius was another planet that could not touch - only look at the star. Love was love, Lily was happy, and James the prince to cause it, a fairy tale.

And what Sirius wanted to know, when the walls closed in and the stone became boiling sky and the bars were looming trees, was if he was wrong for not hating James, if he was supposed to burn with passion until his veins became ash and his arteries charcoal and Lily Evans finally smiled her I-Love-You smile at him and not James, if anger should have driven him to part them, if they all would have lived if he changed the story to become his happy ending.

Only he wouldn't have been the prince, but the capturing villain, stealing her away, and her perfect story and hope cracked and they would not have been alive but existing, and that would have been a far worse death for her than a hero's death, to fade away unimportant for her average love story even if she loved unequalled. Lily Evans needed to be remembered until she became the star of true fairy tales, the rescuer and the dragon-rider and the maiden with the sword drawn.

And so went the velveteen dog, wishing to be real like his girl, hippity-hop down the poison stone hallway.

But what Sirius wanted to feel, more than his shaking heart in his chest, was the depth of that love that the cell had stolen from him, the warmth and the darkness and the way her smile was like light slanting through water, guiding his way to shore, the way he drowned at the sight of her, bright button eyes and patched fur glowing, gleaming, living in her eyes, even as his heart cracked broke shattered and the pieces rattled their way out his chest to grow golden flowers on the ground. Sirius wished to feel his love but he would settle for feeling, to grieve, to scream, to let his voice wind its way to the stars in a sound of sanity and hurt and grief for Lily Evans on the nursery floor and the powder blue rabbit missing the other ear and both eyes and Harry wrapped in death, blood on his scared face.

And what Sirius wanted to do, to do more than anything was go back to that moment and sob in the hallway halfway between James and Lily and scream until his tears dripped through the floor into the ground and the Faerie made him a real wizard-dog with thick fur and bright eyes and the magic to bring back his love, instead of hop-hop-hop take Harry outside wrapped in dream blankets and dust and let his anger burn him, and so he never saw what a war looks like to end, and he never became real.

Hop-hop goes the velveteen dog into cold blue ocean water, a newspaper clipping in its plush mouth.

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Yes, there's quite a few obvious Velveteen Rabbit references. It lends itself well to the effect I was trying for. Also, my spacebar keeps jamming and halfway to broken, so apologies for words that might be run together. There shouldn't be, but feel free to point out any you see.

Reviews would be welcome, critiques would be loved.


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